Everyone knows that your primary email account is the lynchpin of your digital security: if someone gains access to that it's likely you could face quite a bit of damage, not unlike what happened to Mat Honan earlier this month. Your Dropbox account is a close number two, however, especially if you have passwords and other private files synced with your account, so we're glad to hear that two-step authentication is now available as an optional extra security feature.

Although somewhat cumbersome, two-step authentication — particularly for such a sensitive repository of data — makes plenty of sense.

Following a recent lapse in security on one of my Google Apps accounts, I've enabled two-step authentication on all my services that allow it. When doing so, I was somewhat struck by Dropbox's lack of compatibility. Thus, today's news is certainly welcome.

The security layer, which is not yet fully public, is now available for voluntary activation, should you wish to enable it. Before doing so, The Verge highlights that the functionality requires a beta version of Dropbox, and also cautions that the service is oddly bereft of backup options for gaining an emergency access code.

The formal public version should become available "over the next few days."

The very popular folder sync service Dropbox is giving every Pro member a big surprise today by doubling the amount of space of their Dropbox account. Pro accounts will now get double the space they had before. Their new blog post says, “Today we’re happy to announce that our upgrades are getting a huge upgrade! Dropbox Pro now comes in flavors of 100 and 200 GB, but at the price of the original 50 and 100 GB plans. For those of you who need even more space, a brand new 500 GB plan is also joining the posse! If you’re already a Dropbox Pro subscriber, just take a seat and enjoy the fireworks — your Dropbox will supersize itself automatically tonight.”

Having spent much of the weekend wrangling Dropbox into a central position for my newfound multi-Mac setup, I must say that I’m excited about this. Dropbox is a fantastic service, and the new level of space is utterly deserving of the cost.

Considering the increasing competition in the cloud storage space, Dropbox appears to be on the right track, indeed.

So what have we learned? Well, in order to run a massive online service that handles tons of user data, you need a lot of permissions from those users. Those permissions are fairly standardized, since the underlying copyright law itself is static — companies like Microsoft and Google need permission to copy and distribute your content to servers around the world to make services like Drive and SkyDrive work well. There’s also a tension between friendly language and legal precision — drawing in sharp lines often requires aggressive wording, while there’s real comfort in vagaries.

In the end, though, the actual wording of these documents doesn’t reveal much — they all set out to do the same thing, and they all accomplish their goals. What’s most important is how much trust you’re willing to give companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Dropbox as more and more of your data moves to the cloud. Contracts are meaningful and important, but even the most noble promises can easily be broken. It’s actions and history that have consequences, and companies that deal with user data on the web need to start building a history of squeaky-clean behavior before any of us can feel totally comfortable living in the cloud.

In the spirit of his traditional legal analyses, Patel has utterly shattered any lingering inaccuracies dogging various cloud storage services.

At the end of the day, as Patel writes, the matter is settled by the amount of trust you are willing to lend to such an entity. Regardless of any preconceptions otherwise, these companies are simply not out to hurt you or your assets, but caution is obviously warranted.

Having said that, I’m relieved that some semblance of level-headedness remains accessible amidst the widespread paranoia of others. As I’ve written before, there is simply no reason to assume the ill-intent of companies such as Google. Until one of these companies truly betrays the trust of its users, I stand firm as an advocate of innovation — not fearful avoidance.

While I wait expectantly for the inevitable drone of privacy complaints, I’ve taken a moment to experiment with Google’s oft-rumored cloud storage service, Google Drive.

To summarize my experience in a few short words, the service is utterly uninspired but, nevertheless, attractive.

Boasting 5 GB of storage and some enticing pricing for larger storage, Google Drive is immediately reminiscent of its competitors, Dropbox and SkyDrive. Google Documents integration is useful, albeit garish, and iOS implementation is heretofore unreleased. Of note, Google Drive boasts a range of compatible third party services, a number of which have Chrome extensions available in the Chrome Web Store.

Honestly, at the end of the day, I imagine Google Drive will be rather popular for a large quantity of people. Although Google’s service provides an ostensibly similar service to its competitors, the vast majority of people are unaware of the existence of Dropbox and SkyDrive (and the usefulness therein). Google’s placement of “Drive” in its ubiquitous black bar will certainly draw attention and, with competitive storage capacities, it may well prove the best option for a great many people.

Aside from the obvious privacy concerns — many of which are valid for Google’s cloud storage competitors — I tend to think Google has done rather well here. I do not intend to use the service full-time but, if the iOS implementation is compelling, I may well change my mind in due course. If you’re not vehemently anti-Google, Google Drive is certainly worthy of some spare moments of your time.

For further information, Google’s announcement post is available here and the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg has a review.

Google Inc. is close to launching a cloud-storage service that would rival one of Silicon Valley's hottest start-ups, cloud-storage provider Dropbox Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.

Like Dropbox, Google's storage service, called Drive, is a response to the growth of Internet-connected mobile devices like smartphones and tablets and the rise of "cloud computing," or storing files online so that they can be retrieved from multiple devices, these people said.